Abyss Of My Soul
by Tomboy D
Summary: Set after "Self possessed". Rogue deals with the recent events, and not very well, mind you. To survive, she will have to fight her greatest enemy - herself.
1. One Look Beyond

Summary: Set after "Self Possessed". Rogue deals with the recent events, and not very well, mind you. To survive, she will have to fight her greatest enemy - herself. But she needs not fight that battle alone, as she will find out for herself... only, will she find out too late?   
Song from the story is "Slide" written and performed by Dido, and can be found on her album "No Angel".   
  
Title: Abyss Of My Soul   
  
Chapter 1 - One Look Beyond  
  
She struggled to open her eyes. Darkness weighed heavily upon her, and she tried to fight it, but to no avail. Rogue felt weak, too weak even to exist. Her head was throbbing with pain, and the silence, deep and profound, silence which was once all she longed for, was slowly becoming unbearable. She was drowning in the dark; cold feeling of fear sweeping over her, making her stomach hurl down, engulfing her body in painful shivers.   
  
Then slowly, almost too slowly for her tortured mind to notice, darkness and silence gave way, and soft shimmers of light and someone's steady breathing penetrated her senses and tingled her consciousness. Rogue dared to breathe a sigh, fearing anything more might bring more pain into the world, for her and for others. She had already hurt too much, hurt too many.   
  
Into her mind came images of last night, unseen by her eyes, but by eyes of those she absorbed, of those whose life energy she took, who were now yielding their powers through her being. Every time she touched someone, she took their consciousness, their emotions and memories, and with mutants, their powers. Yet, soon enough, she lost them, they left her... leaving only their anger, sorrow and pain behind, leaving Rogue to deal with unfulfilled dreams, lost loves and broken lives. The burden of many lay on her shoulders, and from the moment she kissed for the first time, she carried that burden, although it was not hers to carry... and was never meant to be.   
  
Silent tears run down her face, as she faced the truth of her life. Abandonment, betrayal, disregard... hurt. So much pain. She watched people she loved disappearing from her life, buried under the rubble of past sins, walking away with someone else and never looking back, or changing into the face of Mystique as her adopted mother took away something so precious to Rogue - trust in others... and this time, taking it forever.  
  
* * * * *   
  
"She will need you, Logan," Professor Xavier said quietly, not looking at the man standing in the shadows, but through the window, at the pale moon gleaming between heavy clouds. Soon, wind started to blow, and clouds broke across the night sky, dimming the moonlight and leaving the room in the dark.   
  
"What can I do, Professor?" the man grunted, "I am no good when it comes to this kind of thing... give me something to fight and I'm all for it, but talking it through... You should ask someone else to help her, maybe Storm or Kurt," he said with the satisfied air of the one who knows he's right.   
  
"No, Logan," Professor interrupted softly, moving away from the window and staring into the dark from where Wolverine's voice was coming from, "They can't understand her pain. Kurt is too young, and Storm... well, she could try, but it would not work. Rogue is powerful, and there is great potential in her future... if she can survive the present."   
  
"You can look beyond the brave face she is putting on," Xavier continued, preventing any attempts of complaint from Logan, "Just one look beyond." 


	2. Secrets Of Her Mind

A/N: Oh, yes... It seems I have forgotten something important. Disclaimer, of course! Not mine, as everyone already knows... :)   
  
Chapter 2 - Secrets of Her Mind  
  
  
  
Rogue struggled down the corridor, left arm outstretched, holding onto the wall, half supporting, half guiding herself in the shadows, desperately searching for the door, yearning for the safety and peace of her room. All through the evening people were coming to see her, to look through the glass panes of Med Lab towards her bed and ask Hank about her condition. Rogue pretended to be asleep, an easy, but hateful task, and the only way she knew of warding off inquisitive glances and tiring questions. She heard them all anyways. Even the whispered ones. Darkness still prevailed, yet the silence was broken.   
  
She felt exhausted, distance from the lab to her room, distance which she usually covered in just few minutes, even after the most difficult sessions in the Danger Room, now seemed infinite. It felt like she was walking like this forever, groping in the dark, with only her labored breathing to break the quiet.   
  
A sigh escaped her lips, and suddenly the darkness seemed blacker, heavier, pressing upon her chest with the weight of the mountain. She stumbled backwards, softly crying out, as ground seemed to shift beneath her feet, forcing her down, lower and lower into the abyss...   
  
"Whoa, there, Stripes..." Rogue heard someone's hoarse whisper, as two strong arms locked themselves around her, preventing her from hitting the floor. She looked up, but soft mist seemed to have formed in front of her eyes, and no matter how hard she blinked, it was only getting denser.   
  
Yet, she didn't need to see him to know him. The voice was enough. Rough, deep, but with the slightest trace of gentle worry. Logan. The Wolverine. Squinting at the shadowy silhouette, which just emerged from the mist, she asked, not bothering to hide her resentment, "Why are you following me?"  
  
"The reason is obvious, isn't it?" Logan answered quietly, as he lifted her up, carrying her carefully, but quickly down the corridor, "You shouldn't be sneaking out of the Med Lab in the middle of the night..." He stopped short, then continued in softer voice, "You should rest, Rogue."   
  
Those words made Rogue tremble with anger. Did they think she was going to drop dead if she got out of the bed? Or... were they afraid she was going to go into the possessed state again? Start destroying and killing? Phasing in and out of everyone she ever absorbed, using their power for destruction? That she couldn't control herself?   
  
A grim smile appeared on her lips. That is what they all thought about her anyways. Last night she just proved them right. She couldn't control her powers, she wasn't strong enough, she wasn't worthy... Tears of anger and self-hate slid down her face, but she clenched her teeth, not letting a single sob escape her. It was enough she almost fainted, last thing she needed was for Logan to see her cry. Rogue choked down her tears, swallowed her pain, and said, in apparently unmoved voice, "You can let me down now. Ah'll be fine."   
  
But, he did see her cry. Actually, it was more that he felt her cry. Sharp intake of breath, slight tensing of her slender body and the noiseless sliding of tears down her face. He saw them gleaming in the moonlight, just for a shortest of moments, before they disappeared behind her fingers. Logan despised crying. It was a sign of weakness, of soft will and feeble mind. Yet, this girl had a stubborn, rock-hard will... and her mind? It definitely wasn't feeble, Logan thought, but who knew just what went through that girl's mind? As it proved only recently, no one had any idea, and that almost became their undoing.   
  
Her request passed unnoticed by Logan, as he contemplated the Professor's purpose in asking him to be there for her, he knew of no way to help her, and talking was definitely not his strongest suit. Only when she became restless in his arms did he notice that something was wrong. He looked down at her, but her face was turned forward, peering into the darkness. Logan followed her eyes, and, thanks to his acute vision, immediately saw what Rogue still struggled to perceive. At the end of the hallway, not too far from them, stood Jean and Scott, locked in the embrace, kissing softly. 


	3. Old Faces, New Triggers

A/N: Lonewolf, 'Honestly OK' was also the song that made me think of Rogue, but for the purpose of this story, 'Slide' fits in so much better, as you will see in the next chapter. Thanks for the reviews, all of you, and do continue. They are my staple food (next to coffee...) :) A/N: My, My, thanks to whomever it was that warned me I was spelling her name wrong. I honestly thought it was Rouge, and not Rogue. Silly me. But, it is corrected now.   
  
Chapter 3 - Old Faces, New Triggers  
  
Logan stopped, unsure of what to do. He was very well aware that young girl he held in his arms had certain feelings for Scott Summers. Everyone knew it. It was quite obvious to many, and to those who had better things to do, it was promptly reported, in the form of 'wild fire spreading' gossip. Now Rogue's secret crush was no longer secret for anyone but her. She still lived in conviction that building a wall of ice around her prevented anyone from seeing further than her deadly skin. Or, at least, right now, Logan dearly hoped she did.   
  
Suddenly, he was aware that Rogue has seen the unaware couple, because the arm she held around his neck became rigid and the gloved fingers thrust themselves into his flesh, making it painfully obvious to Logan that if he didn't do something soon, he would have to deal with a lot more than pain in his shoulder. She started to shiver nervously, an unconscious gesture of a wounded animal. Logan was just about to turn around, hoping that their intrusion upon Scott and Jean would remain unknown, when Rogue threw both arms around his neck, and hiding her face in the crook of his shoulder, whispered in a weak voice, which trembled with lousily concealed tension, "Ah can't do this, Logan. Ah feel Ah'll go mad..."  
  
The voice, however weak and muffled, carried itself down the dark hallway and strangely echoed in the night. Scott snapped away, peering into the gloom, while in the same time stepping forward and putting an arm in front of Jean, preventing her attempts to investigate further.   
  
"Who's there? Wolverine?!" Scott asked in a firm tone, slightly raising his hand towards his glasses. Jean stood back, her form melting with the shadows of the curtains, however tall and erect she stood.   
  
Feeling Rogue's warm breath and her face pressed against the fabric of his T-shirt, and convinced by the stillness and rigidness of her body that she had no intention of facing either of the two, he answered quietly, "Yeah, Scott, it's me... but that's no reason you should have to wake half the mansion." Scott failed to notice the note of sarcasm in Logan's voice, focused as he was on the shape in his arms.   
  
"Who's...?" Scott's question remained unfinished, as Jean's voice floated from the shadows, quiet and unobtrusive, yet surprisingly commanding, "Hurry Logan, she is not feeling well... Scott, don't just stand there, move aside. I'll go wake up the Professor and Hank."   
  
Both men were equally astonished by Jean, yet both of them observed her words immediately, Scott out of sheer surprise on seeing whose body it was that Logan carried so gently and protectively, and Logan on realizing that Rogue started to shake like a leaf on water, her body going through heavy convulsions, and while her face was still hidden, he heard quiet, but anguished cries. In an instant, he realized. There was more to it than her pain on seeing Jean and Scott. Rogue was phasing again. 


	4. About her, Without her

A/N: Thank you for all the reviews! I appreciate both kinds of criticism, bad ones because of which I can improve, and good ones because then I know you guys like what I do... so, thanks again.   
  
Chapter 4 - About her, Without her   
  
Scott Summers was leaning on the wall just outside the Med Lab, trying to differentiate between slight nuances of pink and red, colors of which his world seemed to consist through the shades of his glasses, whether there was any improvement in Rogue's condition. It was three days since Logan carried her down the hallway to the lab, three days since she lay there, twisting in pain, phasing from one absorbed personality to another, sometimes displaying their powers in quick succession, sometimes staying in the form of Magneto or Storm for hours at the time, too weak to try and return to her normal self, but also too weak to use the powers of the others. Professor Xavier was also there, ever trying to reach her from the depths in which she now walked, but without any success. Hank performed all the tests he knew, thus all the tests known to man, trying to find the cause of these phases, and consequently the cure. He and the Professor would spend hours discussing why Professor's methods did not hold on longer, why the personalities weren't cleansed out that fatal night, but only seemed to be pushed below the surface, waiting for the right time. And why the right time came so soon, too soon, as it seemed? For Logan, the only one who could answer that, besides the one who now lay dying, did not speak.  
  
Scott stood there long enough, passing unnoticed and unobserved, to know that the only time Rogue ever seemed to return, for a few seconds or less, to the highest step on the ladder of unconsciousness, the one closest to the alert mind, was when there was no one in the lab, no one except Logan. He would take her hand, ever so gently, brushing his gloved fingers against her skin, and he would call her. Although his voice was drowned by the heaviness that was engulfing all of them by the time it reached Scott, he knew the words Logan's lips whispered. How could he not, when he was calling her himself, deep in his soul?   
  
"Scott?" gentle voice came from behind him, and he turned around, almost embarrassed at those thoughts fleeing through his head. Tall, redhead smiled. He pulled her towards himself, his arms finding their sure way around her shoulders, as he kissed her forehead. He sighed deeply, looking down at Jean, and then, again, towards the lab.   
  
"You did nothing for which you should ask forgiveness, Scott," she said, diverting his eyes back towards her face. Calm seriousness radiated from her, frightening and comforting in the same time. "You are not to blame for what is happening to her. She... she is fighting her battles alone, Scott, she always has. And she will win this one too, I know it, I know she will," Jean's voice took on a pleading note, as if asking The Almighty to make her words come true. Scott smiled weakly, running his fingers through her hair, but he could not find the strength to say the words that have been choking him for three days.   
  
"You know... " he started, but his voice died down to heavy sigh, as his attention suddenly seemed to be focused on what was going on in the lab. Logan was speaking again. 'Talking to the empty room, because she can't hear him,' Scott thought sadly, but when he looked at Jean, she was smiling, looking happier than he had seen her in days.   
  
"He can feel her too, Scott," she said quietly, as if afraid that any louder sound might distract Logan, thought in fact, nothing but the loud scream could penetrate thick glass of the Med Lab. On seeing lost look in his eyes, she tried to explain. "I can feel her, or at least, I think I can. Her presence is so weak, so frail, that I feel I might lose her, if only I spoke a bit louder," her voice went down to a whisper, frighteningly, terrifyingly death-like whisper. "She can't find her way back, Scott. It is dark and cold there, and she wants to return, but she can't... Her fears and her mistakes are holding her there, shutting out the light, closing all the doors... WE are holding her there. She became the prisoner of our fears, our mistakes and our pain, and she doesn't know. She doesn't realize..."   
  
Scott shivered with cold of which Jean spoke. He didn't even want to ask how she knew all that... he felt that simply asking would take him too to that place where Rogue was now... But then, Jean's voice took on a new note, much more hopeful one. "Logan, he knows... no, he feels it too. He feels the horror of that place, and he knows that no one can't help her, but she herself. Do you know what he says to her each night before...?" suddenly she stopped and waived her head, as if waiving 'no' to someone else, whom Scott couldn't see. She looked up, smiled and slightly raising on her toes, kissed him on the cheek. In a moment, she was gone, and he was left standing, quite dumbfounded. Yet, he felt there was a reason behind her actions, behind that smile that lit up her face... and he knew that things have suddenly turned for good. God, he loved that girl! 


End file.
